The Intelligent and the Thieves
by ChristinaGurl05
Summary: When an international terrorist tries to take away what makes Mac Mac, can the team save him before its too late? Its my first fic so please be nice, advice is always welcome. Rated T to be safe but it might change.
1. Chapter 1

Hey fam! This is my very first fic and I'm trying to get the hang of the website. Advice and tips are greatly appreciated. Standard disclaimers apply, please leave a review, and enjoy! - Christina

Mac woke up in pain. Everything hurt. He looked down to realize that his wrists were cuffed to a chair. He cleared his throat.

"Oh my god, Mac! You're alive!" came a voice from in front of him. He jumped. The voice shot up and hugged him.

"Riley?" Mac asked. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" Riley said, concerned. She stepped back.

"No!" Just then, his memories came flooding back.

One hour ago…

"So why are we here if you already know everything about us?" Mac shouted at their captor.

"Mr. MacGyver, we have recently developed tech that can retrieve and erase knowledge from one person's brain and place it into another person's brain," said Gans Hruber, an international terrorist. Riley gasped from her chair where she was not tied down. Mac paled, but remained firm.

"So why are we here?" Mac asked again.

"Wow, Mr. MacGyver, I'm disappointed. I thought you would have already figured that out." Gans said. "I know all about your… extraordinary skills. Skills that could really benefit my operation. And since you won't help us, we are just going to take your smarts and use it against you."

Mac dug his fingers into the armrests of the wooden chair. International terrorists like Gans already caused enough damage being averagely smart, there was no telling what he could do with super brains.

"Let's not delay any longer, shall we?" Gans said. He said something in Russian and immediately three people came into the room. Two wheeled a cart with the brain tech and one came wielding a gun. The one with the gun handed it to Gans, who then pressed it to Riley's temple.

"Mr. MacGyver, you will let my friends do what they need to do and you will not struggle or else she gets it." To further emphasize his point, he released the safety with a menacing click. Mac breathed in sharply.

The two men who pushed the cart snapped on latex gloves and began working. They sanitized his temples with wipes, then attached two small circles to the sanitized spot. They quickly attached wires to the circles and ran them to a computer with a hard drive in it.

"Don't worry, Mr. MacGyver. This will not hurt me one bit." Gans smiled and pressed enter on the computer, still holding the gun to Riley's head.

The pain was excruciating. Mac, determined not to give Gans the satisfaction of hearing him scream, clamped his eyes shut and clutched the armrests. After a couple seconds, Mac felt himself fading and he lost consciousness.

Present time…

"Riley," Mac gasped. "They took my intelligence."

"I know," Riley said sadly. "But we're going to get it back. I heard them talking in the hall after they left and they said that they were going to use it in three days. They just have to wait for the recipient of it to get here."

"Okay, that gives us three days to be rescued." Mac said, grateful that they didn't take his logic.

"Mac, it's not that simple. Phoenix has no idea where we are. We were going to exfil and they kidnapped us. We don't exactly have the best track record for making it to exfil. Right now they think that we missed exfil and are waiting for us to make contact with them for new exfil. You used our phones and comms to make a satellite, so we don't even have those." Riley explained.

Mac slumped as much as he could in his chair. He tried to remember anything that could help them, but he couldn't.

"Mac, do you remember anything? Anything at all that could get contact to Phoenix?" Riley asked.

"No. I don't even remember - Goddamnit! I don't even remember Morse code." Mac groaned. "Wait. Riley, you might know how to make a signaling device. I mean, you've seen me make them in the past, right?"

"I think I could," Riley said slowly. "Yeah, I think I can. I remember you making one two days ago out of paperclips, nails, and an electromagnet. But we don't exactly have those materials here…"

"You will have to go get them," Mac said.

"Are you sure? I don't want to leave you alone," Riley said.

"Hey, Ri, I'll be fine. Go, before the come back," Mac said.

Riley left the room and returned a few minutes later with the materials. She dropped to the floor and began constructing the device. When she was finished, she looked at Mac.

"Okay, Mac, you say what you want the message to be and I'll tap it out and hope that Phoenix catches it," Riley said.

"Okay, make it say 'Mac and Riley kidnapped. Gans Hruber.'" Riley tapped out the desired message and sat up.

"Okay. Now all we can do is wait."


	2. Chapter 2

The sudden jingle of keys outside the door startled both of them. Riley quickly kicked the device under her chair and sat down. Gans entered the room with a small paperclip in his hand.

"Here, Mr. MacGyver. You can do something with this, I presume? Maybe unlock your handcuffs, pick the lock on the door? Oh wait, you can't! I took your intelligence!" Gans laughed and threw the paperclip at Mac. Mac just glared at the terrorist who apparently had the humor of a seven year old. Gans left the room and locked the door. Even though he took Mac's intelligence, he still didn't trust the agent.

As soon as Gans left, Riley picked up the paperclip and started picking Mac's handcuffs. After a few minutes, she had them undone and Mac thanked her with a nod.

"Wait, Ri, why didn't they take your hacker-y-ness?" Mac asked.

Riley shrugged. "I don't know. I guess they either didn't know that I'm a hacker or they already have a hacker."

The jingle of keys startled them once more. Riley dove into her seat, but Mac stood up, ready to fight. Gans came in with two water bottles and smiled when he saw Mac standing. "Ah, so you do have a little bit of intelligence left. Or did Miss Davis unlock the cuffs?" He placed the bottles on the floor and announced, "The receiver of your intelligence will be arriving in a few hours. He wishes to meet the man who donated to the cause. Make those bottles last." With that, he left the room.

Mac, not realizing how thirsty he was until he saw the bottles, snatched one up, cracked it open, and chugged half of it. Riley did the same. They capped their bottles and sat back down.

"A few hours? I thought they said it was going to be a few days! How is Phoenix going to find us in a few hours?" Riley said.

Mac buried his face in his hands. "I don't know, Ri."

"Mac, how much do you remember?" Riley asked gently.

Mac sighed. "I don't know. I have bits and pieces that I remember but I can't attach them to anything."

Mac started pacing around the room, mumbling to himself. Riley sat in her chair and tried to take a nap.

A few hours later, Gans came back into the room with a tall, bald man. "Mr. MacGyver, please meet the first receiver of your intelligence, Mr. Elliot Mason."

"Ma'am, we just picked up a Morse code message coming from a warehouse in Northern California," said Jill to Matty.

"That sounds like something Mac would do to coordinate exfil. What does it say?" Matty said.

"It says, 'Mac and Riley kidnapped. Gans Hruber.'" Jill translated.

Matty's eyes widened. "Call Jack." Jill dialed Jack's number and they listened to the long ringtone until -

"Hey, you've reached the one and only Jack Dalton." came Jack's answering machine.

"Call again!" Matty commanded. Jill dialed Jack's number again.

"Hey, you've reached the one and only Jack Dalton." said the answering machine again.

"Again!" Matty said. This time, Jack picked up.

"Uh, Matty, I'm kind of in the middle of getting my hand fixed up." Jack said.

"Jack, get back to the Phoenix now! It's Mac and Riley." Matty said. Jack immediately hung up and ran all the way from Phoenix medical to the War Room.

"Matty what is it? Where's Mac?" asked Jack.

"We don't know. Mac and Riley were on their mission in Sacramento and they missed their exfil. We just got a Morse code message saying that they were kidnapped by Gans Hruber." Matty explained. "Jill is trying to trace where the message came from."

"Who is Jill?" Jack asked.

"Um, hi! I've worked here for three years now!" Jill waved sarcastically at him.

"Nice to meet you." Jack said. "Have you figured out where Mac and Riley are?"

"Unfortunately, no. I was able to narrow the search down to three warehouses near Sacramento, but that's it. The first warehouse is owned by a Luke Tyson, the second is owned by a Louis Gomez, and the third one is owned by a string of shell companies. All have been unoccupied for months." Jill said, looking up from her computer.

"Go!" Matty said. Jack nodded and raced down to the Tac room. Once his agents were assembled, Jack split them into three teams.

"Alpha team, you search the warehouse owned by Louis Gomez. Bravo team, you search the one owned by Luke Tyson. My team, shell company warehouse. Let's go, move it people!"

"Riley, do you hear gunfire?" Mac asked. Riley listened for a second, then nodded. "Do you think it's Jack?"

"I hope so," Riley said.

Mac stood up and began pounding on the door. Riley joined in screaming, "Jack! Jack! We're here," hoping that Jack could find them.

"Hang on, I'm gonna get you out of there," came Jack's voice. Then, to his team, he yelled, "I found them. Two of you stay with me, the rest of you search the perimeter. Go!"

Mac and Riley stepped away from the door and Jack busted it open.

"Jack, Gans took my intelligence." Mac said sadly.

Jack blinked. "I'm sorry, you lost me. What?"

"Gans developed new technology that is capable of taking the knowledge out of someone's brain and duplicating it into others. He took all of Mac's geniusness and stored it on a hard drive. We need to find the hard drive before he can implement it into someone else." Riley explained.

"Whoa. So you don't know anything?" Jack asked. Mac's face crumpled. "Not for long, you don't. Where do you think this hard drive is?" Jack asked.

"When I left this room to get supplies for the Morse code thing, I heard them talking. Gans told his guys to set up the equipment in room three." Riley said.

"Okay, let's go get Mac's brains back." said Jack.

The two agents Jack left outside dutifully followed them, both pointing their guns at any possible attackers behind them. Jack pointed his gun forward.

When they reached room three, Jack counted in his head, "One, two, three!" With that, he kicked the door down to find Elliot Mason sitting in a chair, eyes clenched tightly, wires running from his temples to a computer. Gans Hruber whirled around with his bodyguards, but Jack and the two agents quickly immobilized them. Jack went to rip the wires from Mason, but Riley blocked him.

"No! If you do something wrong, you might damage the hard drive." said Riley. Jack nodded but kept his gun pointed at Mason. Riley tapped on the computer, where a loading bar showed that the data from the hard drive was 72% downloaded into Mason's brain.

"Done!" said Riley two seconds later. Mac ripped the wires away from Mason, who jerked up. Quickly using his new skill set, he punched Mac in the stomach and kicked Jack's gun out of his hand. The two agents, who were holding Gans and his bodyguards, tried to block Mason, but he escaped into the hall.

"Jack, help Mac," said Riley, who was setting up the program again. Jack quickly helped Mac sanitize his temples and apply the wires. "Sorry Mac. This is going to hurt," Riley said, before pressing the Enter key.

Immediately, Mac's body seized up. He sucked in sharply, trying to get as much air as he could to his lungs. His eyes widened and he reached out for something to stabilize him.

Jack grabbed his brother's hand and held it tightly. The only noise in the room was a buzzing sound coming from the computer and Riley chanting the download percentage. "96… 97… 98… 99… 100!" she cheered. The buzzing slowly died down and Mac relaxed. Jack carefully removed the wires from Mac's head.

"Mac? Hey, buddy, how do you feel?" Jack asked softly.

"Oh my god, it worked!" Mac shouted. "It worked. I remember everything now! I remember chemistry, I remember aerospace engineering, I remember -"

"Okay, bud, okay!" Jack said, hugging Mac. "Don't go all sciency on me now!"

"Matty just sent exfil coordinates. How did she know?" Riley asked, looking up from the computer.

"Matty knows everything," said Jack, looking at the coordinates displayed on the screen. "Let's get these little scumbags back to the Phoenix," Jack pointed at Gans.

"Jack, what about Mason? We have a seventy two percent Mac on the run," Riley said.

"Don't worry about him, I'm sure the perimeter guards will pick him up," Jack said.

_A few hours later in the War Room…._

"Nice to see you back, Blondie," said Matty.

"Hey, what about me?" said Jack, mostly kidding but kind of not.

"Shut up, Dalton. I'm about to start the debriefing." Matty shot at him.

"I mean, how come he gets a "nice to see you - "" Matty stopped Jack with a glare.

"We captured all of Gan's men. They are in Interrogation right now. As for Mason, he's gone. We can't find him anywhere. Teams are looking for him right now, but he is not our top priority right now. Now, go home and rest up. Tomorrow comes early." Matty dismissed them with a nod.

"Hey, if there's one thing worse than one Mac, it's two." Jack teased as he, Mac, and Riley walked out of the War Room.

"Hey!" Mac protested, laughing.

"Especially when one of those Macs doesn't have a heart of gold." Riley agreed. Mac tried to hide his grin.

"Whoever that Mason guy is, I'm sure we don't have to worry about him." said Jack. "Now, who's ready for some skeeball?"


End file.
